Shards of Broken Glass
by AliBlack
Summary: When she looks into his eyes she sees the remnants of the evil that once clouded them and broken shards of glass and pain and clear blue skies and a burning, raging ice blue fire and a thousand other things in a tumultuous ocean.  F!Courier/Joshua Graham


When she looks into his eyes she sees the remnants of the evil that once clouded them and broken shards of glass and pain and clear blue skies and a burning, raging ice blue fire and a thousand other things in a tumultuous ocean. She laughed. Maybe it's just that his eyes are the only thing visible – they have to convey all the emotion that a facial expression should.

But she doubted he'd let all that show on his face. She doubted he knew she could see it all in his eyes.

She felt it in the tentative touch of his hand, as he reaches over but won't look – his gentle grasp that soon squeezes tight when she doesn't pull away.

The courier thought again of so many days ago when she truly felt him looking at her for the first time. She could feel his gaze on her as she bathed in the pool, rinsing dirt and blood from her skin. She hadn't thought she could attract his gaze – not with the disinterested, self-righteous speech he had given when they first met. No, she figured he was far too intent upon his revenge or his god.

But after nights conversing by the fire, and finding the only other person in the waste whose well of thought and morality ran so deep – their eyes seemed drawn to one another's more and more. Whispered words across the flicker of firelight, more abundant. A smile, implied through the subtle shift in vocal tone, a commodity rare and treasured.

She washed herself slowly, meticulously, all the while feeling his eyes. Her skin tingled and raised gooseflesh thinking about the idea of it. She couldn't bring herself to look for his gaze, knowing it may embarrass him to be caught, or worse – to meet his eyes and see not a hint of shame, the heat of possession, for how it would light a flame in her core. It scared her, the attention of this man whose words launched armies, and the it stirred dark thoughts she never wanted to admit were often awoken by fear. She was wired wrong, she often told herself.

She had sighed. She was often the type to let things slip by her, only in daydreams living what could have been.

But now, in a cabin darkened by the setting sun, Joshua had slipped a hand over hers with a feather touch, almost trembling. And when she didn't pull away, and his grasp tightened, finally he looked over. His brow furled in some kind of confusion. There was hesitation in his blue eyes – once fierce and irreverent, staring right through her into the oblivion of his pain and vengeance.

His touch brought her into the moment – the warmth, the rough bandages. It was pushing the daytime dreams into the realm of reality – now so fragile and visceral.

She saw it in his eyes – the questions, the uncertainty.

"The thing I like about you," she whispered. "Is that you aren't just another good guy. You know the weight of evil, and the draw of power." She sighed, "And so I don't have to feel like such a monster when I say I've felt it too at times."

Joshua met her eyes again. "I've always, myself, thought that some of the people out here see sin as something _out there_ like a boogyman," he whispered, his words grave. "They don't think of it as something smoldering inside you that can erupt if you're not vigilant."

"You're not the only one who has things they wish they could take back."

"But some of the things I've done..." He shivered. "Are unforgivable."

"And who says mine are?" The courier traced the scars on his hand with her thumb. She wondered if Caesar would do this to her if he knew she was here with a man he hated so much that he had his name stricken.

His gaze focused on her hands, smooth and young, and holding his. "I l– " He stopped. She knew he'd never say it, regardless of whether it was true. She probably wouldn't either.

She was intoxicated by it all – the single glass of wine; the dim room; honest, painful conversation – words that were spun from the heartstrings. His pain-laced eyes; the thought that once she leaves Zion, she doubts she'll ever see him again. That she'd do anything to spit in Caesar's face, even if he never knew of it.

"Will you take off the bandages?" she asked quietly. "I want to see your lips when you speak to me."

Her attraction wasn't so much physical – in truth, she had little idea what he even looked like. But his presence dwarfed her. His voice was commanding – he carried himself like a warrior and a prince. And here he was, his eyes singing a less powerful song, his shoulders fallen. His care for her wasn't a triumph – she felt instead as if he had been somehow conquered.

The courier didn't like the feeling of it all – she'd once before bedded a similarly imposing man who never lost his composure – never stopped frightening her, in truth. She had felt like a whore in his bed – that he had thought of her as so far beneath him. And, truth be told, that had excited her at the time. It was what she had needed then. The courier had a weakness for powerful, commanding men.

But now? A man like him moved to crumbling under her hand? As much as she didn't see him a mountain to have climbed and felt beneath her heels, that he was letting his guard down meant something to the courier. That his eyes were no longer that of a hawk, seeking, picking out weakness to feed upon, but that intoxicating, broken, endless sea stirred something in her, an arousal that was not purely physical. It wasn't borne from intimidation, but from – no, she wouldn't say it even in her head.

She didn't let him say anything more before she kissed him hesitantly, not wanting to cause any undue hurt. Joshua pulled her into his arms and soon onto the rusted, creaking bed whose mattress smelled musty and used.

It was a mess of limbs and clothing, fumbling sounds echoing loud in the quiet room.

It all happened so fast – a blur of kisses and unraveling bandages, and soft touches that made him wince and grit his teeth, but he pushed her hands harder over his flesh no matter how badly it hurt. She felt only half in her head until he was on top of her, his shirt undone, bandages covering his chest underneath, moving against her, inside her. His thrusts were arrhythmic, but his eyes were locked to her face, watching her reactions.

It wasn't what she thought it would be. The courier often imagined things to be much different than they turned out – more idealized, everything just right. His movements were self-conscious and stiff – the unfamiliarity of it all and the pain blending to form a more perfect hurdle for him to struggle with.

After a time, he rested on his forearms, breathing heavily. She felt the muscles in his arms quiver, and realized how hard he was trying to keep himself up. "Just a moment of rest," he whispered. "I want to see you finish at least once before I do."

The courier pulled his hips closer to herself, keeping his form flush with hers. "Don't make it a measure of your worth."

"I can't remember the last time I've done this with..." His gaze fell away. "Someone willing." The tone of his voice was so low and filled with such a shame that it hurt her heart. The life he used to be a part of clouded her mind. For a moment, she could hear the earth move with the sound of a platoon marching in step, the cries of the whores as they were taken, see the colors; desert sand and crimson like the blood-soaked land after the Legion had rolled through it.

She took his chin in her hand and turned his eyes back toward her. Shattered depravity and shame swum together as he met her gaze. He was waiting for her to shove him back off her, she could tell. Push him back with disgust; leave his cock hard and unsatisfied, still slick with her wetness, and his heart in far worse shape.

Instead she rolled him into his back and rode him for all the rhythm he lacked, for how many women she knew would see his broken-glass eyes and pass him by, for the all cruelty he desperately wanted to take back but couldn't, for how he kept himself bound inside wrappings to keep from falling apart. She watched him breathe heavily and arch his back in pleasure. She understood, goddamn it. She could see it all happening so fast. How you could get so wrapped up in it all, that the most violating, bloody things happen by your hand without a second thought. How it all passes by so quickly, and yet how long it lingers in your mind with no way to rectify it.

She felt a tear roll down her cheek, though it was so dark she doubted he could see. For the lives of those who fell under Caesar's steamroller; the women who closed their eyes and took it from Joshua and a hundred other men, and the fumbling touch of this man, a decade her senior, who desperately wanted to please her, but wasn't. She wondered if he saw the faces of the many women he'd been with as he looked at hers, atoning for them all in some small, desperate way by thinking only of her pleasure now, this time.

He pulled her down against his chest, kissing her neck and thrusting his hips up into her. "You're too good at this," he hissed against her skin. "I can't – "

She pulled him back on top of her once more. "Go ahead," she urged. "Let go."

At her words, he groaned and pulled her hips close with force, his fingers digging into the flesh on her hips. "Should I...?"

"On my stomach," she said after a moment.

He pulled from her after few more jerking thrusts and spilt himself on her belly, his seed hot on her skin. The courier groaned at the feeling, wanting to have felt it inside her, but there were a myriad of reasons they shouldn't.

There was quiet in the room save for the subsiding panting breaths.

She hadn't come. Her mind was spinning far too deep with thoughts of other things to get there.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's been so long, and the way you were moving..."

"Shh," she said, reaching for her shirt to clean her belly. Joshua reached down to touch her but she pulled his hand away, knowing that despite the ache she felt it would be a fruitless endeavor. "It's the wine," she lied in a whisper. "Always did this to me."

She didn't know anyone who would understand the feeling welling in the pit of her stomach. Vulpes had made her come. More times than she cared to count. Left her a shivering heap in a cold, New Vegas bed and buttoned his shirt and left. Would anyone believe her if she said she found more pleasure with Joshua, if they knew the way her muscles clenched, her back had arched, her head had swum in a blinding white light under the Fox's touch?

She was bottled up inside herself as she lay next to him, stroking his brow gently, a great deal of care in her touch. The courier closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the sound of the door closing, the deafening silence in the room as she still lay tangled in the sheets naked and alone, a dull pulsing still subsiding between her legs.

The woman opened her eyes, forcing herself back into the moment that she was truly in. She kissed Joshua's forehead, savoring the copper taste of his still-healing wounds and the moist, salty sheen of sweat.

Somewhere inside she knew she'd long surpassed the time when she could walk away from the Mojave – when she had no 'place' or responsibility. But here, now, in the silent, dark room, feeling the awakened but not sated ache in her loins, there was something lacking. A void to be filled. It stretched and contorted and wrapped around her chest, constricting her, when she thought of having to soon return.

In truth, she wanted desperately to stay here with this man who had earned some respite from this cold and lonely world. But he had far too much pride to ask her to stay, and she wouldn't stay unless asked. But if he asked, oh lord, she didn't think she could deny him. She'd never seen so much beauty as in his shattered-glass eyes, and had never before felt anything but loneliness. Part of her heart felt it would trade the fate of the whole Mojave, Caesar be damned, to stay right where she was. But often we only daydream about the things we would like to do.

"Zion is your place now, isn't it?" she whispered so quiet he might not have heard, not truly wanting to hear the answer.

"And the Mojave, yours."

Neither said anything further, but held onto one another like possessions. It took a long time for the courier to fall asleep, thinking of the ache between her legs, and the emptiness that would stay with her for so long afterward.


End file.
